


The Name Game

by Eloarei



Series: Hunter x Hunter mini-AUs [4]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least the young man wasn't one of those idiots who thought they were clever by giving some stupid fake name, but at this point Leorio just wished he had something better to think of him as than 'the cute blonde who works for Nostrade'. A Coffee-Shop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Name Game

**Author's Note:**

> There's always got to be a coffee-shop AU.

  
Working at a coffee shop was a great way to learn about people with minimum effort. For example, there were those two kids who came in every other day before (presumably) school, and sat in the corner by the front window, chatting. It was clear that it was the pale kid, Killua, whose idea it was to come to the coffee shop, as he was fairly specific about his chocolatey drink and he actually drank it all, whereas the dark-haired boy, Gon, ordered something random off the menu every day and hardly touched it the whole time they were there. Most likely, he just went wherever his friend liked. But he seemed perfectly happy to be there, always talkative and energetic, while his friend often drifted off into silence and simply watched him chatter happily.  
  
Then there was Hanzo, the head trainer of the dojo down the street, who was very friendly when you struck up a conversation with him, despite how serious he looked whenever he wasn't engaged. He seemed to know most of the other regulars. Either they all went to the dojo as well, or he was secretly a social butterfly. People liked him, either way; he obviously did well in a leader position. His usual drink was a green-tea smoothie, but every so often he'd order something decadent with extra whipped cream on top and look at the barrista with a secretive, pleading expression.  
  
At least once a week, a very loud business man called Tonpa came in and ordered a plain black coffee and proceeded to take up one of the larger tables in the middle of the room. He'd then get on his phone and bark orders at someone on the other line for an hour, looking smug and laughing about his brilliant plans, and causing all the other customers to sit at the tables furthest from him with earbuds jammed in their ears.  
  
But not everybody was so easy to learn. Some people rushed in and out twice a day, and though Leorio might have had their name, order, and face memorized for the rest of his life, the whole of their personality and circumstances were a mystery to him. Pokkle came in every morning and grabbed a drink for himself and someone named Ponzu before dashing off to whoever knew where. Sometimes he had mud on his boots or a piece of hay stuck in his hair, so Leorio imagined he and Ponzu were zoo-keepers and spent most of their days hanging out with tigers, but maybe Pokkle just lived on a farm and Ponzu was his demanding boss at his boring office job.  
  
Sometimes an odd-looking but fairly attractive guy called Hisoka would meander in and order something (he didn't have a usual drink), and lean against the wall by the door with his arms casually crossed while he waited for his drink to be made. More than several times, Leorio had come back with his drink and found Hisoka conspicuously staring at Gon and Killua if they were in. None of the theories this inspired about the man were particularly pleasant, so Leorio pointedly didn't think about it, although he found himself keeping a closer eye on the kids when Hisoka was around.  
  
But the customer who really caught his attention was a young blonde man who'd started coming in just a few weeks ago. He was frustrating. There was nothing wrong with him; he was much more polite than many of the people Leorio saw on an average day, and he didn't make a huge fuss about his order, even though it was fairly large. What bothered him about the blonde was that he couldn't get his name. He came in every morning, not in a rush but clearly on a schedule, and ordered about ten different drinks. He was patient when describing his orders and thanked the barrista when they handed him the carriers of hot and cold drinks, and then he left. He didn't stick around to chat like many of the other customers did. There wasn't anything particularly striking about him, but Leorio found he sort of wished the young man wouldn't hurry off so quickly.  
  
One of the mornings during the second week of his patronage was thankfully slow, and the weather that was previously stormy and unpleasant had mellowed out, so everyone's attitude seemed a little calmer as well. The young blonde man came in and ordered his drinks as usual and stood back away from the entrance while he waited for them to be made. He came to retrieve them when Leorio called out “Nostrade”, the name he'd ordered them under but which clearly wasn't his. Leorio didn't pay a huge amount of attention to current affairs or politics, but he knew Nostrade was a high-profile businessman who would never be caught dead ordering his own coffee. This young man had to be his secretary or something, which was nice to know but still didn't answer his original question.  
  
There were no other customers to deal with for the moment, so Leorio took the opportunity to strike up a conversation as he handed the carriers over a little slower than normal. “So how do you drink all these coffees in one morning?”  
  
The blonde's eyebrows jumped for a short second before he realized Leorio was joking. He smiled and responded, “I have some help.”  
  
Leorio grinned, weirdly happy to finally hear the young man say something new. “Oh, you mean you're not a raging caffeine addict?”  
  
“Not at all,” the young man said, adjusting his hold on the carriers and tipping his head in goodbye before turning to the door and exiting out into the bright morning sunlight. Leorio didn't notice he'd continued to stare after him until someone shot a straw wrapper at him from the corner and he turned to find the two middle-schoolers huddled over the table laughing. He just resisted throwing an empty cup at them.  
  
The blonde came again the next day, and though it was busier, Leorio still took a minute to talk to him as he set the carriers up on the bar between them. “If these aren't all yours, how do you remember whose is whose? I can hardly remember what's in them while I'm making them!” He realized belatedly that that made him look a little incompetent, but he let it go with just the tiniest cringe.  
  
“It's a bit of a production,” the young man responded, tilting his head in acquiescence.  
  
“I could label them for you?” Leorio pulled a marker out from his apron pocket and twirled it between his long fingers.  
  
The usual business-like expression on the blonde's face melted into something a little more casual. “That would save me some confusion, thanks.” So Leorio pulled the drinks back out of the carriers one by one, described their contents (to the best of his memory), and wrote down the names the young man said.  
  
“...and this last one?”  
  
“That one's mine,” he said, causing Leorio to blink hard before he recovered enough to smirk and write, in his prettiest handwriting, _'Mine'_. He added a little heart around the dot on the 'I' and handed it to the young man instead of placing it back in the carrier with the other drinks.  
  
A surprised blush spread across the blonde's usually pale face, and he coughed to cover what Leorio thought was a laugh. “Thanks,” he muttered, putting the drink back in its place and taking the carriers down from the bar and shuffling out with a quick backwards glance. There were no Gon and Killua to remind him that he was staring, but Leorio got back to work on his own after the blonde rounded the corner of the shop. He figured he'd have another chance tomorrow.  
  
And he did. His little stunt hadn't scared the young man off, and hadn't stopped him from smiling and blushing again when Leorio handed him _'Mine's_ drink once more, this time with a little flower where the heart had been. He seemed less surprised but still amused when his coffee the day after was labeled _'blondee'._ The day after that gave him a cute little drawing of his own face (obviously pre-prepared, because Leorio wasn't skilled enough of an artist to do even a terrible rendition of his favorite customer in the minute-and-a-half he could stand there without his manager snapping at him). The rest of the week, the cups were labeled with various flattering descriptions of the young man, and Leorio quickly began to consider this his favorite time of the day. Watching the young man's face redden automatically made him twice as cheerful for the rest of his shift.  
  
By the next week, though, Leorio was feeling a little frustrated. Not in a truly negative way; he realized they were sort of playing a game, and the rules were clear if unspoken. He just wanted the game to end already. Why? No real reason. Learning the young man's name was not the be-all end-all of his hopes and dreams, and it didn't really mean anything, but whatever was between them or was likely to ever _be_ between them really wouldn't progress any further without at least learning his name first. However, straight up asking for it wasn't playing the game, so Leorio thought his hardest about how to step up his charm enough to get to the next stage.  
  
He hadn't come up with any more clever ways of getting the blonde to offer his name by his next shift, but in the end it didn't matter, as the young man didn't show up. Leorio was becoming concerned as the minutes ticked by, though he told himself repeatedly that there was nothing weird about people changing their routines and that nobody owed their barrista an explanation, regardless of how much they may or may not have flirted in the previous weeks. (The definition of flirting was another matter altogether, and not one he had the time to really think about while he was on the job.)  
  
About an hour after the blonde would normally be in, a short woman in a floppy, flowered hat came in and presented an order for Nostrade. One of his co-workers had taken the order, but Leorio quickly offered to trade, which the other barrista was more than happy to accept, the Nostrade order being such a large pain in the ass to make. Leorio made the drinks quickly, though he took an extra minute to draw a large whipped-cream flower on top of the blonde's, and rushed them over to the waiting Nostrade employee. He smiled charmingly and bowed a little as he handed them over.  
  
“Oh my, that was quick,” the woman said, smiling up at Leorio with a buck-toothed grin that made her seem even more harmless than the small stature and floral-print hat. “You're very efficient!”  
  
“I've had some practice,” Leorio said, fluffing up the front bit of his hair, despite it still being quite in place. “You want me to label those for you?”  
  
The woman shook her head. “I haven't the slightest clue which is whose, but thank you.”  
  
Leorio picked one up out of the carrier and compared it to the others. “Not a problem! I think I can remember it. Let's see... this one is Squala's?” He spelled the name out carefully and set it back in the carrier. He was about to pick up the next one when he turned instead to the woman. “Ah, which one's yours?”  
  
She tilted her head at the cups, but couldn't discern one from the other simply by color. “The lemon chamomile tea.”  
  
“Huh, so you must be...” He searched a moment in the carrier of warm drinks before plucking out the correct one and jotting a name down on the cup. He presented it to her with a hopeful smile. “Senritsu. Right?”  
  
The woman's friendly smile grew wider. “That's wonderful. You must have quite the memory.”  
  
“I try,” Leorio said, hoping his face didn't look as red as it felt. Though a far cry from his usual flirtatious banter, he found he enjoyed Senritsu's kind words and calm expression as well. He imagined for a short moment a scene of she and the blonde working together over a vague project in a vague office building. It was nice.  
  
He labeled the rest of the drinks and placed them carefully back in their carriers, but when he got to the blonde's usual, he wasn't sure quite what to write. It was different, scribbling cute names and pictures on the cup when it didn't have to go through someone elses' hands to get to the young man. He twisted it around and thought for something to label it that wouldn't be confusing or too embarrassing. “What happened to the guy who usually comes in?” he asked, hoping he sounded casual.  
  
“Oh, Kurapika? He wasn't feeling well, so I offered to come instead.”  
  
Leorio's heart skipped a beat and his mouth fell into an open little smile. ' _Kurapika, huh?'_ He didn't like hearing that the young man was ill, but he knew his name now, and that tiny piece of information seemed to take precedence in his mind.  
  
Senritsu caught his eye and smiled at the light puff of laughter that had escaped Leorio. “He wanted to come, but I insisted he stay. I see now I must have caused him to miss an important morning ritual. I do hope he'll forgive me.” The words were repentant, but Senritsu's eyes sparkled as she said them, and Leorio realized he must have seemed fairly transparent to her. Kurapika, as well.  
  
He blushed again, redness probably reaching his ears by now. Praise and a second-hand admission of interest in the same span of several minutes was more embarrassment than he was used to handling at this job. Clearing his throat, he tried to remember what they were actually talking about and respond accordingly, although he felt his mind was still floating in a bit of a haze. _'Kurapika, huh? Kurapika.'_ “Well, uh, tell Kurapika that I hope he gets better soon.”  
  
“I will do that,” Senritsu said with a nod. She thanked him and was about to walk off with the carriers when they both realized Leorio was still holding the last drink. He looked down at it as if surprised.  
  
 _'Kurapika,'_ he kept thinking. _'Kurapika.'_ He scribbled something down on the cup and reached over the counter to place it back in the carrier. “Have a nice day,” he told her and waved as she left. _'Kurapika,'_ he thought, and belatedly realized he wasn't entirely sure what he had written.  
  
A straw wrapper to his cheek and the subsequent middle-school laughter brought him back to the real world.  
  
OoOoO  
  
Kurapika raised his head when he heard the door click, and saw Senritsu come in with the familiar cardboard drink-carriers. His head was still pounding from the pressure of the cold or whatever he'd managed to contract, but he watched as she distributed the drinks one-by-one and waited with almost his usual patience for it to be his turn.  
  
In a few minutes, Senritsu was before him, holding his drink but not yet handing it over. “I met a very nice young man today,” she told him with a smile that was just this side of a smirk, and set the drink on Kurapika's desk, next to his folded arms. She continued on to her own desk and sat down, looking pleased as she sipped her tea.  
  
Kurapika's already warm face reddened a little more at Senritsu's subtle commentary, but it turned to fire when he turned his cup around so that the label was facing him. Even diagonal, head resting on his arms, he recognized the writing as the barrista's, and a smile crept up to his tired face and kept going until it was a full-blown, embarrassed, triumphant grin.  
  
 _'Kurapika,'_ it read.  
 _'Get well soon!_  
~Leorio  <3'  
  
And the _pièce de résistance,_ a messy but thankfully legible phone number almost curling around the bottom part of the cup.  
  
To his own surprise, Kurapika began to laugh, and the quiet breathy noise drew stares from his co-workers, most of whom were still under the impression that his face was literally frozen in impassivity.  
  
“Are you okay?” one whispered, as if afraid that speaking at a normal volume would cause Kurapika to crack completely.  
  
“I'm fine,” he insisted, ducking his head to hide his uncontrollable expression.  
  
In the end, the other Nostrade employees banded together to convince the boss to send him home, the ones who didn't know him well because they were worried he was really badly ill, the ones who knew him better because they were happy to give him some time off, and Senritsu because she knew he was too hard-working to text on the job.  
  
OoOoO  
  
As he was curling up in bed, Kurapika turned to his nightstand where the empty plastic cup sat, sluggishly punched in the number and selected 'text'. He sorted through his tired brain for the right thing to say, lazily pushing aside ' _thank you'_ and such utilitarian questions as _'Is this the right number?'_ until, somehow, the text on the screen read _'Since I won, when are you going to invite me to dinner?'_ He barely had the presence of mind to press 'send' before he started drifting off to sleep, and had already fallen into a deep, warm slumber by the time the response popped up.  
  
 _'Any time. Your place or Mine?'_  
  
In the morning, he would resolve to get well as soon as possible, and in the meantime spend his day being immensely appreciative of modern technology, intuitive co-workers, and coffee. 


End file.
